Iridescent sea gooseberry turns castaway on the sands
Seaburn beach, Sunderland: Left behind was a shining blob, a comb jelly, as transparent as glass, looking like a bloated airshipExhilarating was the only way to describe our walk along this shore this...
View ArticleScarlet signs of spring
Mickleton, Teesdale: Scores of elf cups, vivid as a guardsman’s regimental tunic, have begun to open in the lee of a stone bridgeThat moment in the year had arrived when a longing for spring set in but...
View ArticleWinlaton Mill, Blaydon-on-Tyne: Harvestmen flee before steel blades
Winlaton Mill, Blaydon-on-Tyne: Each spidery creature clung to its refuge, waving its second pair of legs as if trying to comprehend the devastationWe arrived laden with tools, ready to clear the...
View ArticleCountry diary: Crook, County Durham: Some of the orb-shell cockles were as...
Crook, County Durham: When they came to rest their shells parted a little more and two short pink siphons extendedI didn't expect to find much, but curiosity beckoned. The water was bone-chillingly...
View ArticleCountry diary: Blanchland, Northumberland: Relics of lead miners' battles...
Blanchland, Northumberland: Steam had been defeated by the struggle to haul coal into this remote valleyThe sound of water gurgling in drainage ditches accompanied us along the last section of our...
View ArticleCountry diary: Wolsingham, Weardale: Spurge laurel's crepuscular clientele
Wolsingham, Weardale: Its nectaries, at the end of a narrow tubular corolla, can be reached by moths at dusk as well as by long-tongued bumblebees during the dayMarch is a tantalising month for a...
View ArticleCountry diary: Dawdon, Durham coast: It soon became clear that here was a...
Dawdon, Durham coast: Fury erupted until the intruder was ejected, sent on his way with a barrage of avian invectiveAfter the recent storms, calm winter sunshine had brought out the Sunday afternoon...
View ArticleCountry diary: Seaham, Durham: With every tide the sea erases a little more...
Seaham, Durham: Almost a century after the bottleworks closed, the sea still returns the waste glass that was routinely dumped into seaWhen Dawdon pit closed and the sea dumping of colliery waste...
View ArticleCountry diary: Crook, County Durham: A week in the life of a wolf spider
Crook, County Durham: It begins with a tussle between two male wolf spiders and ends with a pregnant female sunning herself on a rock. Welcome to a minuscule summer ritualI could tell that the male...
View ArticleCountry diary: Alston, Cumbria: The stillness was broken by a distant whistle...
Alston, Cumbria: The flycatcher was still at work, unmoved by the passing of the mechanical monster with its clicketty-clack coachesThere was a gentle hiss of steam behind the trees as the locomotive...
View ArticleCountry diary: Blanchland, Northumberland: Busy bees are bundles of vibrating...
Blanchland, Northumberland: The final stretch of our walk invited us to stand and stare at the industry of the beesAfter the open horizons of Bulbeck Common, the steep lane leading down to the valley...
View ArticleCountry diary: Blagill, Cumbria: The county flower survives
Blagill, Cumbria: Grass of Parnassus is duplicitous, and not just because it is not a grass at allThe sense of trepidation we felt when we climbed over the stile and set off towards Alston along the...
View ArticleShield bugs: nature's heraldic knights
Keelman's Way, Wylam, Northumberland Stiff-legged denizens of the wood emblazoned in green, red and gold greet autumn's arrivalThe celebrated Northumbrian wood engraver Thomas Bewick walked this...
View ArticleA floral masterpiece
Country Diary: The bumblebee’s efforts seemed clumsy compared with the intricacy of the flower exploiting herIf you eavesdrop on the conversations of naturalists like as not you’ll hear them trading...
View ArticleMagical place of gin-scented foliage
Forest-in-Teesdale: This juniper forest is a botanical wonder“KILLER ON THE LOOSE” warned the dramatic sign beside the disinfectant footbaths at the entrance to Moor House national nature reserve. As...
View ArticleThe waste land breeding crabs
Dawdon, Durham: The sea floor had once been smothered in silt, the water so turbid no marine life could be seenThe Turning the Tide millennium project has restored this coastline, transforming...
View ArticleJumping dog violet slips into boulder’s jaws
Eggleston, Teesdale: The tenacious plant, lodged in a crevice, produced a floral display none of the woodland violets could matchWhen we followed this path beside the river Tees a month ago the first...
View ArticleChattering and canoodling kittiwakes
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: The ear-splitting noise is tolerated with pride once Geordies realise they are hosting the bird’s largest inland nesting siteIf we’d closed our eyes we might have imagined we were...
View ArticleThe owl and the caterpillar tarry by the light of noon
Weardale, Durham: The geometrid caterpillar became a dead twig and the owlet dozed away the daylight hours in the cavity of the oakSometimes it is best to just sit and wait. We settled down on a mossy...
View ArticleCan the cloning saxifrage outwit our herbicides?
Thorsgill Beck, Teesdale To 16th century travellers meadow saxifrage would have been unremarkable, today it is a window into a lost landscapeFive centuries ago the White Canons, who worshipped in the...
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